


The Perfect Freedom of Being in Control

by Lbilover



Category: Spirited
Genre: F/M, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 19:22:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lbilover/pseuds/Lbilover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Though I stand in the pool of fear, I am not afraid.</i> He’d said that to her outside the Elysian, and she’d foolishly asked him what a ghost had to be afraid of. Foolishly, for ghosts could love, too, and love is the scariest emotion of them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Perfect Freedom of Being in Control

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whatsubtext](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsubtext/gifts).



> A Yuletide gift for Whatsubtext, who requested a Spirited fic: _I love the UST, but please feel free to consummate it if you're game for writing smut! A focus on the events right after the first season ends (I've only seen the first season) and they know they can touch in dreams-- and probably dance around it a lot-- would be awesome._
> 
> I've tried very hard to be canon compliant with Season 2 events, but also accommodate your request! Happy Yuletide, and I hope you enjoy the fic!! :D
> 
> Suzy's love of gymnastics has always resonated with me (as a former gymnast myself), and it seems crucial to understanding her character, so I welcomed the opportunity to explore that aspect a little.

~*~

The tumbling mat stretches before her, an ocean of robin’s egg blue. Suzy, wearing a peacock and navy leotard and with her long hair pulled back into a pony tail and tamed into submission by barrettes and gel, stands in one corner, bare heels precisely placed just inside the white boundary lines. The bouncy music that accompanies her floor routine lulls for a few precious seconds, allowing her to take a deep breath and gather her energy for what is the most difficult tumbling pass she has yet attempted in competition.

As she raises to her toes, Suzy visualizes the sequence of tricks she is about to perform: round off, back handspring, whipback, whipback, full twisting layout. The movements are embedded in her DNA from endless repetition, first with a harness, then with her coach as spotter, and lastly on her own. She has crashed and burned in training more times than she can count, but she doesn’t fear falling, doesn’t fear the bumps, bruises or sprains gained on the path to mastering new skills, because at the end she will have the perfect freedom that comes from being in control.

The music shifts, and on cue she breaks into a sprint toward the far corner, her arms pumping furiously. Round off, back handspring, whipback, whipback... and then she is soaring, twisting and turning effortlessly through the air like a bird on the wing. It is for this Suzy lives, for these exalted moments when the countless hours of rigid discipline come to fruition and she flies free. There is so much she doesn’t have control over in her life, but here in this space that smells of chalk, sweat and hair spray, she has it, absolutely.

She nails the landing, knees slightly bent, feet stuck to the mat as if glued there, and then straightens. She arches her back, holds out her arms and a blinding smile lights up her normally reserved countenance. She’s oblivious to the applause of the crowd, of her coach and teammates, for her gaze has fallen on a man sitting in a chair at the side of the gymnasium. Tall, lanky, dressed in punk rocker clothes and unlaced boots, he’s as incongruous in that setting as a crow among a flock of fluttering jewel-bright parakeets.

As their eyes meet, he grins and makes a thumbs-up gesture. There is no mistaking that crooked smile. It could only belong to one person.

“Henry,” she cries, and runs to him, bare feet slapping on the mat. “You’re here?”

“That,” Henry says, ignoring her question and climbing to his feet, “was fucking brilliant, Suz. What you showed me that other time was impressive, but this... Shit.”

There is genuine respect in his pale aqua eyes. It’s the respect of one artist for another. A knot of emotion forms in her chest, making it difficult to breathe. She presses her fist against her breastbone to ease it, and blinks furiously against the tears that never used to come easily if at all, but of late have been sneaking past her defenses.

Despite the wild differences between them, uptight dentist and ghostly punk rocker, she thinks Henry actually gets it, gets something that no one else in her life has ever quite fathomed. Steve had only valued her gymnastic training because her flexibility meant they could achieve the difficult positions he liked to try from the Kama Sutra or whatever other sex instruction tome or video he was currently obsessed with. Otherwise, her predilection for turning cartwheels and back handsprings was simply another example of ‘Suzy being weird’.

“It’s like that for you when you play music?” Suzy asks, almost afraid to believe it’s true.

“Hell yeah.” Henry runs his hand through his unkempt mane, spiking it even further. “I used to think the only fucking time I was ever free was when I was playing music, when it was just me and my guitar, and fuck the rest of the crap going on around me.”

“Yes.” Suzy nods. “The perfect freedom of being in control.”

He gives her his ‘Henry’ look: half-quizzical, half-impressed, head cocked to one side. “Not precisely the way I’d have put it, Suz, but yeah.”

“But Henry,” she returns to her original question, “what are you doing at a gymnastics meet?” She laughs and glances down at her leotard, a relic of long ago days. “What am _I_ doing at a gymnastics meet?”

Henry smiles, that quirky smile that folds his face into deeply graven lines she longs to explore with her fingers. “Don’t you know? We’re dreaming again, Suz.” He looks around him. “But if there’s a gymnastics meet going on, you could sure as fuck fool me.”

That’s when she realises she’s in the ballroom of the Elysian. There’s no blue mat, no bleachers, no crowds, only patterned beige carpet, crystal chandeliers and panelled walls. Maybe there never had been a gymnasium at all, or maybe it’s the irrational, illogical nature of dreams, slip-sliding from one improbable scenario to the next.

It doesn’t matter, though, because she’s realised something else. There’s only her and Henry here in this space. They are alone. _Alone._ And they’ve discovered that in dreams, if nowhere else, they can actually touch.

Henry’s smile widens as he reads the dawning knowledge in her face. “Got it in one, Suz. Hand that lady a beer.”

“Henry...” A flutter awakens in her stomach. Nerves and exhilaration, the way she used to feel right before she stepped onto the floor exercise mat or faced the vault, balance beam or uneven bars. A trained performer learns to feed off that emotion, bend it to her will, but this is unknown territory. She’s out of her element, out of control, because she’s never loved anyone like she loves Henry.

“What is it? Your outfit?” Henry steps closer, looks down at her, considering. “I’m not saying you weren’t fucking amazing in that leopard print dress, but myself, I’m strangely partial to you in a leotard.”

His large hand closes on her upper arm. She can’t take her eyes from the long fingers with their spatulate pads wrapped around her bicep, or the bony wrist protruding from the incongruous bumblebee yellow cuff of his jacket. Emotions jitter to life inside her, so huge, so all-consuming that she fears she won’t be able to contain them. She looks up at Henry and sees the same fear in his eyes.

 _Though I stand in the pool of fear, I am not afraid._ He’d said that to her outside the Elysian, and she’d foolishly asked him what a ghost had to be afraid of. Foolishly, for ghosts could love, too, and love is the scariest emotion of them all.

She recalls what happened next. She’d shown him how she handled her fears, and advised him to do the same. Well, why not now?

“Henry, do a cartwheel,” she blurts out as his hand moves on her arm, gripping it tighter as if he’s about to pull her against him.

He freezes. “The fuck, Suz. I can’t do a bloody cartwheel. You’re the gymnast, not me.”

“Yes, you can. I’ll spot you.”

“Suz, I didn’t come back for gymnastics lessons.”

“I know.” She pleads with him with her eyes. “Please.”

Henry drops his hand, shrugs. “What the fuck. I’m a bloody ghost. I can’t break my neck, I’m already dead.” He holds his arms out. “All right, Coach Darling, have at me.”

Suzy becomes all business. “First let me demonstrate,” she says, and does a slow, careful cartwheel, revelling in the absolute control she has over her body, over every well-honed, disciplined muscle.

“Fuck me, you make it look so easy,” Henry says, shaking his head.

“But it is. Come on, I’ll show you.”

She takes his sleeve, drags him into the center of the ballroom, gets him positioned with his spidery arms over his head and his booted left foot forward. She’s so excited at helping Henry to turn his first cartwheel that she isn’t thinking about the fact that she’s touching him.

She places one hand at his waist. “I’ll guide you through it, Henry. No worries.”

“Easy for you to say.” He starts to lean forward and place his hands on the carpet, stops, straightens, the carelessly knotted blue scarf swinging. “This is fucking insane, Suz.”

“Henry.”

“All right, all right.” He draws a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.”

In truth, there is something slightly comical about the sight of Henry Mallet of The Nerve doing a cartwheel. Male gymnasts normally have compact builds, but Henry is all legs, like a stork. Suzy bites back a smile as she holds him steady at the waist and guides him through the revolution.

“Well fuck me,” Henry says in amazement when he’s standing upright again, only staggering a little. “I did it. I fucking did a cartwheel.”

“I told you so.” Suzy is smug. “Do another.”

So he does, and then another, and then he’s laughing, and she’s laughing, too, holding onto his waist. He puts his arms around her and hugs her close. “That was brilliant,” Henry says. “ _You’re_ brilliant.”

Just that fast the atmosphere changes.

“Suz.” He stares down into her eyes, his clear and compelling. She’s never known anyone with eyes like Henry’s. It’s not their unusual colour, it’s their penetrating directness. He’s looking at her the way he does when she wakes in the morning and she knows he’s been lying there simply watching her sleep. In anyone else it would bother her, but not Henry. She wants him to look.

“Suz,” he says again, and starts to lower his head.

She lifts hers eagerly to meet him. Fear is gone. She’s ready for this now, and so is he. The perfect freedom of being in control. That’s how it will be for both them, gymnast and musician, and the rest of the world with its complications and frustrations will cease to exist.

His warm breath is a teasing whisper on her parted lips...

_Oh god, Henry._

“Suzy,” a voice says.

“Shh,” says another voice. “She’s sleeping.”

Suzy jolts awake. She’s in her bed, wearing her favourite pyjamas adorned with moons and stars, and it’s morning. Henry lies propped on his right side facing her. His expression is rueful but amused. She knows exactly why, too.

“Oh Henry, I’m sorry,” she says, grimacing. “What was I thinking? Cartwheels instead of kisses!”

Henry moves a forefinger until it hovers just above her lips, a very faintly chill ghostly presence. She mourns the loss of warmth and touch, but Henry says, “Shh. No worries, Suz.” A lazy grin overspreads his face. “Besides,” he huffs a laugh, “I feel quite chuffed. I’m a fucking gymnast now.”

She won’t be distracted; remorse for the wasted opportunity colours her voice as she says, “But Henry, we could have...”

“Could have what?” someone asks eagerly.

Startled, Suzy looks past Henry and makes an unnerving discovery: their bedroom is full of ghosts.

~end~


End file.
